Cross Currents: Christmas music can bless your soul 12-18-09

Published 6:00 pm, Thursday, December 17, 2009

Right when the angels sang about "peace on earth," Bethlehem was anything but peaceful.

Consider Mary, for instance, with her first experience of labor pains, now coming faster and faster — and her without a bed or a roof over her head. Would her child be born in a Bethlehem street?

Then there was Joseph, flustered like the husband of any expectant woman, but unlike us, having no doctor to call, no hospital to visit, desperately searching for a suitable place for Mary to have the baby.

The shepherds? What may have been a calm, pastoral scene on a Bethlehem hillside was changed to one of near-panic when that first angel appeared. And even his blessed message had an unsettling effort, for the shepherds were then torn by their instinct to protect their flocks and their strong curiosity to go see the child the angels sang about.

Only the very young or the very addled in Bethlehem had peace that night. The crowds in the city were there under pressure — forced by their foreign rulers to register there for tax purposes. The Roman officials taking census knew the people saw them as the enemy.

So there was little peace in Bethlehem when the heavenly messengers sang "peace on earth."

Is it any different now? Prospective parents still get uptight when labor pains begin. Like the shepherds, people are still frightened by the unfamiliar.

In villages from Baghdad to Beirut, men still rankle at the presence of enemy soldiers in their streets. Few of us today are exempt from the hurts of war.

Where, then, is the peace the angels sang about?

The angels’ promise begins and ends with God. "The peace of God that passes understanding" can be ours when God has his rightful place in our lives.

The angels sang about "peace on earth" — right here, right now in this world in our lives. Only in Heaven will we be free from sickness, pain, sorrow and war. But to all who trust in him God promises his peace now.

The peace the angels promised rests on their message of God’s "goodwill toward men." The One born that night makes us right with God despite our weaknesses and failures. In him "we have peace with God."

As we look back to Bethlehem during this season, what better way can we celebrate than to sing as the angels did? Let the music of the season bless your soul.

(Gene Shelburne is pulpit minister at Anna Street Church of Christ in Amarillo. Contact him at 2310 Anna St., Amarillo, TX 79106-4717 or at GeneShel@aol.com. Get his books or magazines at www.christianappeal.com.)